Back in the 1930s and 1940s, the Chief of the Bureau of Public Roads Thomas Harris MacDonald imagined a nationwide network of toll-free highways. His vision was largely implemented: Today only 1 out of every 16 miles on the Interstate system is toll road. All of these freeways has helped (ahem) fuel urban sprawl resulting in more cars per person, more miles driven, and arguably, increased American tubbiness.

Statasico would love to remedy this by raising the gas tax. Among other things, ncreasing the gas tax would:

1) Capture the negative externalities caused by greenhouse gas emissions and traffic

2) Create a potential pool of money for mass transit projects

3) Really upset the oil companies, and

4) Never happen with gas prices hovering around $3 per gallon.

What about mass transit? Isn’t some of that federal 14.7 cent per gallon gas tax applied toward mass transit? Yes… in spirit. Right now a whopping 1% of the price of every gallon of gas (about 2.7 cents of every gallon) goes toward the Mass Transit Account.

So I’m giving in. Let’s build more highways. And make every one of them a tollway. But don’t stop with just the new highways. We should also convert the remaining miles of the Interstate system to toll roads. I’m not advocating that states continue privatizing toll collection. That’s one role the government should not outsource.

One of the common complaints about toll roads was the inefficiency of sitting in a line of cars sputtering greenhouse gasses while someone ahead of you scrambles for change. But E-ZPass has started to change that. Unfortunately, toll collection is still slow because not all cars use the E-ZPass lanes. So the government should require every to have an electronic toll collection (ETC) technology installed as soon as a car is registered.

The government must stay actively involved because tollways are a regressive tax. Fixed tolls take a higher percentage of wages from low income workers than high income workers. Once again, technology can help remedy this. E-ZPass could be linked to a driver’s tax bracket, enabling the government to impose lower tolls for low income workers. Likewise, hybrid cars or alternative fuel cars could pay lower tolls.

Even better toll collection technology already exists across the Atlantic. Last year, Germany introduced an automatic toll system for trucks traveling along its 7500 miles of autobahn. The Toll-Collect system utilizes GPS technology, so Germany can reap about $3.2 billion annually while never requiring trucks to slow down to collect a single toll.

So what is the gas tax equivalent of tolls? Looking around the country, tolls average about $.04 per mile. With average passenger car and light truck fuel economy was 21.8 miles per gallon in 2004, those tolls are the equivalent to a gas tax of $.83 per gallon. Unlike a gas tax, tolls don’t necessarily lead consumers to buy more fuel efficient cars. But tollways make it easy for drivers to see some of the expenses associated with 46,000 miles of “free”ways. And with added toll revenue, perhaps we can beef up that Mass Transit Account and start to get people out of their cars.

*Uses the 2004 average fuel economy for cars and light trucks in the U.S. of 20.8 miles per gallon.

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